A new version of PC Pro will be released very shortly. Improvements will include:

Changes to the sound software in order to allow improved sound with a future version of PC Sound Pro

Option to disable floppy disk access (for use in schools)

Access for programmers to "unfreeze" function via wimpmessage

A number of bug fixes, including year 2000 support, extended keyboard
calls, and 5x86 I/O timing configuration correction

This upgrade will of course be free to those who have already purchased PC Pro (and owners of Aleph One PC cards). The changes in the area of sound support will be supported by a new version of PC Sound Professional designed to take advantage of the changes.

At the top of Aleph One's list of future improvements is support for VESA 2.0 using a linear frame buffer. This will allow better performance for all VESA games. In addition, once this is complete, work can start on DirectX/DirectDraw support for Windows 95 games. These improvements require a lot of work, but are planned for some time in 1997.

WinRisc is designed to run PC card applications within RISC OS. It begins by opening a RISC OS window representing the Windows Program Manager. Windows applications (which are still stored in the PC partition as usual) can then be started by double-clicking on the relevant icon.

When Windows applications are run, they appear in ordinary RISC OS windows, although the contents still look like the original Windows applications. Instead of Windows-style menubars, however, pressing the [MENU] mouse button over the window produces a standard RISC OS menu with the same entries as would have appeared in the menubar. When a Windows application is minimized under WinRisc, the result is that an entry for that application is added to WinRisc's icon bar menu. In most other respects the Windows applications continue to behave exactly as they would under Windows.

WinRisc was released at the
Acorn World 1996 exhibition. On 22nd January 1997 Chris Claydon of ARMed Forces Software announced the release of the free upgrade to v1.30 of WinRisc. This includes:

Windows 95 support

Support for using ImageFS in drag-and-drop operations between RISC OS and Windows

WinRisc also allows files to be copied between RISC OS and Windows by drag and
drop. Dragging a file icon from a filer window and dropping it on a WinRisc
window results in a normal Windows "save as" dialogue box being
opened, allowing the file to be saved to the PC partition, from where it may be
loaded into a Windows application. In the other direction, saving a file
from a Windows application to the WINRISC/TO.ARM directory will open a
RISC OS "save as" window allowing the file to be dragged to a filer window.

As yet, WinRisc doesn't operate very quickly (the current release is faster than some of the beta-release versions which generated very negative comments); even with StrongARM and 5x86 processors, there is a short pause as application windows to be updated; this makes the system too slow to use for some styles of applications. ARMed Forces Software currently recommend running Windows in a 16-colour screenmode, as this makes WinRisc much faster.

The speed of the system is being worked on by Armed Forces Software; however they have said that significant increases in speed are unlikely without Aleph One making substantial changes to PC Pro. Aleph One have stated that it will be some time before these changes can be implemented.

PC Sound Professional, developed in association with Aleph One and ESP, provides "highly compatible Soundblaster 16 drivers", plus MPU-401 MIDI music, for Risc PC x86 cards. It was released at the
Acorn World 1996 exhibition.
The features provided are as follows:

Full Windows 3.1 and 95 Support, including DirectSound!

A very high degree of DOS game support, including
accurate sound for probably hundreds of games (there are now far too many to list here or even to keep track of, but see the
Games Compatibility List for the details that we do have)

The product will also include intructions on how to set up PC titles to work correctly, as well as full technical support. The software is also being continually developed in order to provide proper sound compatibility with more software titles, and new releases. R-Comp informed us at BETT '97 that further substantial improvements will be made to the software following changes to PC Pro which are being made by Aleph One.

See RCI's web site to
download the latest version of the !PCSConfig front end, released in
April 1997. Older versions may be unreliable under some circumstances,
so the new version is recommended.

Note that the Windows MIDI support allows Cakewalk and CuBase to run well on the PC card; a perfect addition for Sibelius users.

During November 1996, Robin Watts of Warm Silence Software announced on comp.sys.acorn.extra-cpu that they were looking into the possibility of providing a replacement for the RISC OS floating point emulator (FPE) that would use an x86 card to carry out floating point operations. The response on the newsgroup was enthusiastic (with the exception of one sceptical voice with regard to the likely speed improvements), and the software is now scheduled for release at the Wakefield Acorn Show.

Tests so far have revealed that, with an ARM710 and a 486DX4/100, the minimum speed-up (seen with instructions such as MOVE) is 4 times (220%), while the maximum speed-up (seen with more complex instructions such as SINE) is over 100 times (10,000%). With a StrongARM the speedup is less apparent, but WSS are investigating the possibility of a specially StrongARM-tuned version of the software. A simple test program (plotting lissajous figures) showed a speedup of four times with a StrongARM, but more than a hundred times speedup with an ARM710. (This is because the StrongARM is much faster at floating point even using the software FPE emulator, not because the x86 card floating point accelerator doesn't work as well with StrongARM).

It appears that, as far as existing RISC OS software is concerned, Merlin would benefit from the FPE replacement, as it uses the FPE, but Davinci and Top Model would not, as they use specially written integer arithmetic.

However, Robin has also stated that, once the software has been written to completely emulate the standard FPU on the PC card, it is possible that a library of useful functions will also be made available, for machines both with and without a PC card. Thus software authors would be able to write software to use this standard set of functions, and the software would be able to take advantage of the PC card floating point software where it was available.

It will not be possible to use the PC card as a floating point accelerator and as a PC card at the same time.

All prices listed exclusive of VAT and subject to change; consult
your supplier

(Note that "plug and play" drivers for all their joystick products (allowing them to work without any need for PC Joy) are now available from Stuart Tyrell Developments - upgrades are free for existing customers and the drivers are supplied with all new purchases)

RISCutils,
utility package providing a variety of extra features for RISC OS,
including preventing the PC partition being truncated by accidentally
closing it.